For those just entering the restaurant business, building or renovating to create the perfect kitchen can be an overwhelming task. It seems easy to make all kinds of mistakes. This blog can help you avoid many common mistakes and create a perfect kitchen for your restaurant.
Assembling A Team Building the perfect kitchen for you restaurant is only a solo task for the most talented of cooking builders. For most people, they will require a team of well-trained professionals to create a perfect kitchen. It’s important to know and have an idea of who this team should consist of. Your kitchen creation team should include obviously a plumber, electrician, builders and a designer, but also may be less obviously your chef, the one who will actually be spending all their time in the space. Also a trip to your local restaurant supply store can give you an idea of how much space different items and chef supplies will take up for the designing process.
Deciding On Size Obviously a little cafe with twenty seats needs a significantly smaller kitchen than a restaurant with room for a hundred inside with seating for thirty more outside. The rule of thumb is that every seat in the restaurant equals five square feet in the kitchen, meaning that a diner that seats thirty would have a one hundred and fifty square foot kitchen minimum.
Venting An important part of your kitchen design must be ventilation. How will steam and smoke get out of the kitchen and fresh air come in, keeping the kitchen safe not only for employees, but also for customers in the dining area.
Inspection It’s a given that your kitchen will have to meet certain health and safety standards. It can be a good idea to try and meet with your local and state inspectors prior to beginning building so that they can see your plans for your kitchen design and inform you of any potential major problems
Working Zones and Flexibility Many restaurant kitchens have specific areas set aside for particular actions or processes like food cleaning, cooking, baking or cutting. This can allow many people to work on multiple elements of a dish at the same time as well as minimizing collision and chaos. Restaurant trends and food items are always changing. It’s important to design and implement a kitchen that can easily change to meet new demands.
